


Cactus

by Rysler



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-19
Updated: 2011-04-19
Packaged: 2017-10-18 08:49:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/187091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rysler/pseuds/Rysler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zoe and River are left alone on a deserted planet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cactus

"This is a bad idea, Mal," Zoe said. If she had a club with that written on it, and she beat him about the head, her warning would get through. His skull might have to crack first. That wouldn't do. The whole damn mission would be delayed.

Mal said, "Look, girl needs protection."

"She can shoot."

"When she wants to. But her timing is all off. She needs a gun hand, and I ain't leaving Jayne behind with her. You know what he'll do."

"Why don't you leave all them civilians behind, then, sir?"

"Need Simon and Book to make it all legitimate-like. Inara's off getting her hair done. Might as well have the rest. I think you'll have your hands full."

"Kinda hot here."

Mal looked out across the desert. Rocks and dirt and not enough grass to raise a baby goat. He shrugged and said, "Least it isn't cold."

"Ship's got heat," Zoe said. "And coolin'.'

"That it does." He raised the cargo door, and Zoe's husband said goodbye over her radio, and then they all blasted out into outer space without her.

Zoe did a slow circle on her heel. The horizon touched the desert too far out to calculate with nothing in the way. No mountains, no trees, no boulders. 300 degrees into her spin, she encountered River, standing several meters away from her already. Girl could take care of herself. They could have left her. But they'd have never found her again when they got back.

Simon would complain.

They might never find her as it is.

Zoe said, "Wonder why this place never got settled, when the next moon over did just fine." She said it loud enough so River could hear, though she didn't say it to River, exactly.

River said, just as loud, just as clear, "Failed terraforming. They poisoned the air, made it alien. Like us. But they forgot about the soil. It's dead."

"Still, they could put a base here or something. Expansion."

"Next one over's fine," River said, mimicking Zoe's tone.

Zoe nodded.

River looked around, the same way Zoe had. Maybe trying to see what Zoe saw.

Zoe asked, "Terraforming. This world specifically?"

"Yes. Learned about it in Biology class. Back in the other life," River said.

The sky was turning gray. The sun had dropped quickly beyond the horizon--showing the edge to be closer than Zoe had thought. She ought to put up the tent before it got cold. But she looked up at the sky and waited for stars to appear. Just gray was unsettling. Un-space-like.

River came to her side, and looked upward too, craning her neck.

"Did you ever want to go to space?" Zoe asked.

River shrugged, and said, "Always thought ships were transportation. Get on a ship and go somewhere. Be someone. Not--being in between places. Being in between someones."

"Ain't so much about that. You make other choices. The ship just comes along as extra."

"You're going to protect me," River said.

"Yup."

"Kill for me."

"Have before," Zoe said.

"Die for me?"

"I'd die for a lot less," Zoe said.

"I'm not that special."

"Simon thinks so."

"Simon could be a different Simon, without me."

"He made his choice. I just come along as extra," Zoe said.

River grinned. Looking up at the starless, graying sky, she said, "You avoid me."

"I don't."

"You do."

"You aren't real easy to get close to," Zoe said.

"Neither are you."

"Don't talk much to passengers. You're--just a girl."

River moved in front of her, faced her, to stare and say, "Just a girl. Ask them what they do to girls. Invade and tear and destroy. Over and over and--" Her voice rose in pitch. She clamped her jaw and stared at Zoe.

"Sorry," Zoe said.

"If I'd been raised on a farm, I'd be just like Kaylee," River said.

"Well. Not 'just like,'" Zoe said.

River's sickly grin came back. She said, "I like it here.'

Zoe asked, "Why are you staring at me?"

"Everywhere else is nothingness."

Zoe stared back for a while, until the tension left River's face. No stars came out, but there was wind, brushing over them, tousling River's hair.

River put her hands in her pockets, and then, turning away, shrugged and pulled her dress over her head. She dropped it in the dirt.

Zoe coughed and went about setting up the tent. When she pulled out the poles, River stopped her, putting a hand on her wrist. River shook her head. She spread out the tent on the ground, like a parachute, and then pulled out the bedding and put it on top. Zoe let her work, and shrugged out of her gear instead, took off her coat, cleaned her gun, loosened her belt.

"There," River announced, after long minutes of preciseness with the fabric that hadn't brought much change from the initial settling.

"Hungry?" Zoe asked.

River shook her head.

"Me either." Zoe sat on the tent, and picked up her gun. If threat came, it'd come from the sky. No way to sneak up on them with space all around.

River sat beside her, legs crossed, in undergarments that Zoe would have thought were more suited to Inara.

"They are Inara's," River said.

"Reading my mind?"

"All right there in your face."

Zoe nodded. She leaned back, knitting her hands behind her head. The tent cushioned the ground just enough that Zoe could feel the hard, unforgiving dirt underneath her, but still felt apart from it.

"Zoe?" River asked.

"Yeah."

"What does it mean to be a woman?"

Zoe asked, "Why're you asking me?"

"You're one."

"So are you," Zoe said.

"Not really."

"Ain't no rules, River."

"Woman," River said, rolling over the word in her mouth. "Kaylee and Inara are not I. Me. I could fix things, like Kaylee. Fix people, like Inara. They both try and fix me--am I a person or a thing? Special? Or specimen?"

River shook her head, and said, "I could be like you. I could--be."

If the stars hadn't been trying to peek through the gray sky, trying to soften the world and tempt away the mortals, if River and Zoe hadn't been the only two goddamn people on the whole planet, Zoe might have had more to say when River settled down beside her, and put her hand on Zoe's chest, right above her shirt.

As it was, Zoe rolled onto her side, and put one hand on River's head, near her cheek, more in her hair. After that first touch, it wasn't as nearly as scary. River didn't have acid skin. She didn't turn into serpents.

River looked at her, and fell into the long staring contest again. Zoe held her gaze, and tried not to breathe. Which was damn hard, after a while.

River said, slowly, as if she'd been practicing the words, "I don't want those to be the only marks on my body. Is--Isn't that why you let Wash--because after a war, you have to make love?" River's forehead wrinkled. "Oh. Is that what that means?"

Zoe swallowed. "Ain't never thought of it that way," she said, smoothing River's hair away from her ear.

River's cool, unmoving fingers rested against Zoe's chest.

Zoe sighed. She took some time herself, coming up with words, and then said, "Comes a time, if you survive long enough, if you live long enough, you get mad. You look for something bigger, so that the past will be smaller. What you said."

River nodded.

Zoe's fingers glided over River's ear. She understood Inara, and they had professionals for this sort of thing, same as they had professional shooters. And engineers and pilots. She--

River said, "Help me."

"All right," Zoe said. "All right."

River accepted her kisses with a mute, open mouth, that reminded Zoe of her own first kisses. The waiting, the anticipation, the hoping that if she was accepting enough, her ignorance would go unnoticed. Zoe taught River to kiss, as best she could, how to give and take, how not to drool. River was a fast learner, and not offended at being taught, not with no one else around.

Getting off the rest of their clothes didn't take much time, and embracing didn't need to be taught. What felt good, where arms and legs and torsos touched, where hands smoothed skin, where bones compensated for the ground underneath them, all came natural, and they could kiss and touch at the same time.

River must have expected a puzzle to solve, rather than pleasure, for when pleasure came, her eyes went clear, and she said, "Oh."

"Just what everyone says," Zoe said.

"My," River said. "Can you--"

"Sure can," Zoe said.

River's head fell back, supported by the crook of Zoe's arm. Her eyes were wide open, reflecting pinpricks of starlight.

* * *

Mal came ten hours later, when the sun had risen, and they had dressed and packed, and River had made an entire haiku out of rocks on the ground. Aboard the ship, River caught her brother's shoulders and spun around. She laughed. Her eyes met Mal's, once, dancing. Possibly a trick of the light.

"I'm a woman," River announced.

Simon and Mal glanced at Zoe.

"Don't look at me," Zoe said.

Jayne banged on the catwalk, stomping his feet. Kaylee hit him with a spatula, and said, "Now that everyone's aboard, we can eat."

"I'll shoot anyone who ain't up here in five seconds," Jayne said. "I'm starving."

Mal asked Zoe, "You all right?"

"Sure, sir."

"You seem a little quiet."

She frowned at him.

"Good point. And her? She a little crazy?"

"Just a little, sir."

Mal nodded. He went up the stairs, two at a time, and Simon followed, lest he be shot first.

River leaned on the railing and looked at Zoe.

"You're staring," Zoe said.

"I am. I could be staring at other things," River said. "But I'm not."

END


End file.
